Everyone from hosts on late night talk show hosts to country music artists have poked fun at the colossal failure known as Obamacare. Whether you were on board or not, chances are you’ve experienced some headaches over what was supposed to be a simple to use website. Since the marketplace went live on October 1, there has been problem after problem, with many people unable to sign up for health insurance. What’s worse is that evidence shows that the government knew the website wasn’t going to be ready to run smoothly on the launch date. Why didn’t our government hold off until the website was functional? More importantly, did the government know that Healthcare.gov was going to fail?
Emails Show Problems
Emails dating back to July of this year confirm that the government knew there were problems with the website. The emails detail how the website development team was understaffed and didn’t have enough resources to meet scheduled deadlines. One email from July 8 even discussed how the project was off course and getting worse rather than improving. In other words, with less than three months until the website was set to launch, it was known that the website was behind schedule and that the problems were not improving. Why not postpone the launch rather than waste the time of hundreds of thousands of Americans who have unsuccessfully attempted to apply?
Why the Opening Date Wasn’t Pushed Back
According to the website, Government Health IT, “The answer from federal officials was that the website needed to accommodate users who would need to purchase health insurance before Dec. 15 in order to be covered by Jan. 1, 2014, as mandated under the ACA, or face financial penalties for non-compliance.” What good does it do to have a website up if it doesn’t serve its purpose? Yes, it would have made it easier for people to apply for health insurance by the December 15 deadline, but not if the site doesn’t work. All the government managed to do was waste everyone’s time.
What Can Americans Expect Moving Forward
It’s been stated that the Healthcare.gov website should work for a majority of Americans by November 30. Whether or not that will happen remains to be seen. We also need to ask ourselves, how many does a majority include? Obviously, they’ve made it clear that it won’t work for everyone. Your best bet will be to attempt the application after this date and hope for the best.
Obamacare has received its far share of criticism over the past two months and with good reason. The website was a complete failure and there’s no concrete answer as to when the website will work for everyone. If you’re on a job search, you may want to see if there are health IT jobs available on the government end, as they surely need the help. At this point it’s a waiting game as to whether or not people can get signed up in time or face a large penalty in the new year.
